Medical Breakthrough Can Keep People Alive Even After They’ve Stopped Breathing

Modern medicine has been known to perform the impossible, including resuscitate people on the edge of death. Now doctors will be able to wow us even more since they’ll soon have the ability to keep people alive even if they’ve stopped breathing.

Luckily, researchers have managed to create a fantastic new medical breakthrough using microparticles that when injected into the bloodstream it works to quickly oxygenate the body, and maintain life, even when breathing has stopped.

The development of these microparticles is the brainchild of a team at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Their latest discovery will allow medical teams to keep patients alive for 15 to 30 minutes despite major respiratory failure without risk of heart attack or permanent brain injuries.

According to John Kheir, MD at the Department of Cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital, while similar solutions have failed in the past because of gas embolism, his team of chemical engineers, particle scientists and medical doctors has solved the problem by using deformable particles, rather than bubbles.

Some of the most convincing experiments were the early ones. We drew each other’s blood, mixed it in a test tube with the microparticles, and watched blue blood turn immediately red, right before our eyes.

The idea, Kheir says, came to him after treating a little girl in 2006, who died because of brain injuries sustained from a lung hemorrhage. Since then, he and his team have been working to develop this life giving solution, and after years of investigation, it appears to be finally becoming a reality.